Addicted
by Zannen
Summary: "We wouldn't be able to help ourselves," he smirked. "For all our differences, we're compatible enough and stubborn enough and ADDICTED to each other enough to stay together. We'd hit a rut maybe, cheat over and over, but we'd still stay together."
1. Addicted

"Who am I to you?"

The question came out of nowhere. There they were, sitting as they had thousands of times before, side-by-side watching the screen in front of them. A program was on that he had stopped on, something catching his roving eye long enough to hold his attention. He'd turned to her when she spoke, annoyance giving him a small crease between his eyebrows. A cool assessing glance showed that his companion sat with her feet on the cushions, her knees under her chin, her arms wrapped around her calves, her hair tucked behind the small shells of her ears, her lips pursed, her eyes stuck to the blinking screen as the program continued.

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "You're you, of course."

The lips he stared at turned a bit inward, as if she were biting on them to keep from blurting out what she wanted to say. The arms around her legs stiffened and he heard the sound of nails scratching against the denim of her jeans. Her toes, small and painted a soft shade of rose, curled into the rough fabric of his cheap thrift store couch. An answering crease of annoyance appeared between her eyebrows.

"You heard me."

"I'm not in the mood to decipher 'girl-speak'," he replied.

"I'm trying not to speak in 'girl-speak' as you so succinctly put it," she bit out, still staring at the screen and not him. "I guess a better question is: What am I to you?"

"We're friends."

She laughed. A hollow sound that he instantly recognized as one she used in public when something someone said wasn't especially funny but warranted some sort of reaction. The furrow between his brows deepened as he saw the signs that a Talk was about to begin. A growl of frustration wanted to burst from his throat, but he kept it at bay. Of the two of them, he was the Logical one. They would go nowhere if he let loose any hysterics.

After knowing her for so long, he knew he would find no logic in whatever she had to say next.

"Do you treat all of your friends the way you treat me?"

"We hang out," he answered. "We're hanging out now. We talk and joke around and—"

"Fuck," she interrupted. For the first time since her initial question she looked at him. He was sprawled in the opposite corner of the couch, his arm resting along the back, his hand absently playing with her hair, his own hair tousled and damp, his bathrobe hastily thrown on after his shower, gaping open down to the middle of his chest.

"We have sex," he corrected, shrugging. "You want it as much as me. We're both unattached, so we're not hurting anyone. What's your point?" Her gaze turned back to the screen and he turned off the TV. "What are you getting at?"

"You don't touch me when we're with other people…"

"So?"

"You barely even look at me," she said. Her hands stopped scratching against the denim of her pants and she uncurled herself from the couch to pick up the shirt she'd left on the floor. "You're too busy chatting up everyone else."

"When in a group, it's usually normal to interact with the other people in it," he ground out, annoyance made another appearance in his demeanor as his voice lowered dangerously. He watched as she put on the tee shirt and reached for a bottle of water from the coffee table. Once she'd settled back down onto the couch, his hand came over and started playing with her hair again. Neither one noticed.

"I should qualify," she admitted, pulling her feet up onto the couch and resting her chin on her knees once again. "You're too busy chatting up the other women."

"You said you didn't mind if I wanted to find someone else."

"And I thought I meant it too," she laughed her fake hollow laugh.

"You gave me advice when I asked for it."

"It was all academic at that point," she said, waving her hand airily at him. "Giving you advice on how to get a girl into your bed is completely different than _watching_ you try to get one into it. Especially when I rolled out of it not twenty minutes before."

"So you're _jealous_?" he asked, horrified at the idea. It was ludicrous. It was alarming and unwanted. He'd continued their arrangement because she was relatively easy to deal with. She'd never asked for much until now and she'd never shown the slightest interest in whoever caught _his_ interest.

"That's part of it," she whispered.

The blunt manner of her answer shouldn't have surprised him and yet it inexplicably did. Despite his early warning about 'girl-speak,' the female next to him was one of the most plainspoken people he'd ever known. It was part of what attracted him to her in the first place. She said what was on her mind. She went with emotion and took everything to heart. But that bluntness, that willingness to let the world know what she was feeling and thinking at every moment of every day, was also something he couldn't abide by.

"I thought you understood," he said stiffly, this time staring at the blank screen instead of her profile. His fingers curled a lock of her hair over and over again in an absent manner. "I'm a social person and I'm one who can't live without companionship. I've been too long without a steady girlfriend."

"But not without a steady fuck," she added. "Because you have me…"

"Do you want more?" he rasped out. His hand stilled, silky locks of hair caught in his fingers. The breath seemed to leave his body completely for a few heartbeats. "Because we've already tried that and—"

"And it didn't work," she finished. She tilted her head sharply to the left and the crack of bone against sinew sounded loud in the silence. The hand that played with her hair strayed to her neck to deftly massage the tense muscle. "We couldn't make it work."

"We want different things in a partner," he agreed. "The only place where our wants coincide is in bed."

Even as he said it, he knew himself for a liar.

They had more in common than he liked to admit. They had the same sense of humor, shared the same passion for debate, shared the same need to ridicule and mock the hypocrisy of the world around them. So why couldn't he do those things with her in public, in front of other people? He knew when she accused him of ignoring her outside of bed that she was right. He went out of his way to not look at her, not stand too close, not sit remotely near her when they went out to eat as a group or to the movies. He didn't want anyone to know that there was even the slightest bit of intimacy between them.

But there _was_ intimacy between them. Years of it, actually. So much that at times it threatened to smother him with the weight of its expectations.

"Maybe if you went out and looked for a boyfriend," he began. "You wouldn't feel so jealous of my own endeavors to find a girlfriend."

"Maybe," she agreed. "God knows that if we got back together, it would be a disaster."

He waited for that clutch in his stomach. That instant bodily rejection of the idea that she look for another man to satisfy her needs the way he'd been looking for a woman to satisfy his. But when it didn't come he relaxed. This was good. It was for the best. If she got too invested in this—whatever _this_ was—she'd get hurt. And she was too good a friend for him to hurt her.

"How do you do it?" she wondered. His hand traveled back to play with her hair and she surprised them both when she pulled away.

"Do what?"

"How do you flirt with those girls, those other women? How do you go out with one and then come to me with the kind of passion you do?" her cheek rested on her knees as she glared at him. "I know it's possible to fuck without love, without affection. But how can you try to create a relationship—a _meaningful_, lovely relationship—the kind of relationship you claim to want so badly and fuck me, whisper to me, need me the way you do?"

"I could go with the age old excuse that I'm a man," he shrugged. "Men are dogs who can't be faithful, who are capable of playing more than one woman at a time. I could say that you're doing the female thing and putting more meaning into our encounters than what actually is."

"You could," she agreed. He glanced back at her. Her voice was rough and low, a change from her normal tone, but her eyes were dry and clear. Logical. Cold. Analyzing. "But that's not an answer I'll take from you."

His hands wanted to fist. They wanted to grab hold of her hair and shut her up. Instead he kept them where they were, one on the armrest of the couch and the other flattened against the fabric behind her head. He gave a small sigh and said simply, "Oh?"

"You're better than that," she uttered confidently.

"I'm really not."

Silence settled between them. Now it was her breathing that hitched. "Do you know what they say about me?" she asked.

"They don't matter," he said quickly, knowing that her latest non sequitur would lead them nowhere good. "They don't know us."

That hollow laugh sounded again. He was starting to hate that laugh.

"But they do. Oh, God, they do know us," she laughed again. "So well…"

He shouldn't ask. He should get up, get dressed, and leave before this horror of a conversation moved any further. He should have done that at her first question. But he didn't and so now couldn't. His curiosity got the best of him as he propped his left ankle on his right knee.

"What do they say?"

"They call me 'poor,'" she answered. "And 'sad' and 'pathetic.' They say I'm a fool for waiting for you to come to your senses. They say that we belong together and you're too stupid to see it. They say that if I had any kind of spine, any kind of self-respect, I'd kick you out of my bed until you put a ring on my finger. They were surprised when we broke up."

"They don't know us," he repeated. "They don't know you or me or how we were together when we were a couple."

"Couples are supposed to make each other better. Soul mates make each other better people," she muttered bitterly. "That's what you told me once."

"Yes…" he confirmed. "I really do believe that."

"And _I_ couldn't make _you_ better."

That clutch in the stomach, that instant bodily rejection of the words that left her mouth that he'd been waiting for earlier came full force then. What could he say to that? That he'd wanted to feel like a better man? Strove to become one and when he failed at that he couldn't stand the sight of her smiling—her _loving—_face? What would she expect him to say?

The truth, he realized. She'd want to know the truth.

"No," he admitted. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her eyes narrow. Narrow, but not fill with the tears he expected. "I couldn't make myself better. And I wanted to, for you. But I couldn't. And part of me blamed you for that."

"So we grew apart," she concluded.

He nodded his head, tempted to reach for her hair again. Tempted to see if this time she'd let him. "We grew apart and we both found someone else."

"Maybe it would've been better if we'd stayed away from each other when those relationships went bust," she lamented.

"Too late for regrets now." He gave into temptation and reached for the strand of hair that lay against her cheek. That clutch in his stomach eased a bit when she didn't pull away. He wanted to lean in closer, wanted to gather her to him and take away the cold, brittle look in her eyes, but he checked himself. He knew how to handle her when she was crying and emotional. When she was bubbling with rage and anger it wasn't too far a step from tears to passion. He didn't know where he stood with this colder, more logical version of the woman he knew so well.

"Too late," she repeated. "I can't keep doing this. You might be able to flip a switch so that you can flirt then fuck two different women in the same night, but I can't do that. I've never been able to do that."

"Sex," he said. At her blank look, he clarified. "We have sex. We don't fuck. It's not like that between us." That blank look faded as her eyes began to burn with a soft fire he recognized as anger. _Finally, _he thought with satisfaction.

"Well it's not lovemaking either," she spat out.

"Fucking is crude. It implies that I'm only invested in the pleasure I can take from it. Have I ever left you hanging?" he asked.

"No," she admitted. "Congratulations, you're a very attentive fuck-buddy. But it's still fucking."

Now it was his eyes that began to burn with anger. "I've never known you to be overly fond of that word and yet you've said it many times tonight. Earlier, you said that jealousy is only part of the problem. What's the other part?"

She bit her lip again, this time hard enough to leave teeth marks on the fragile flesh. He wanted to bite them himself. Her hand ran through her hair and her fingers ended up tangling in his when she forgot he was still playing with a few locks of it. He wrapped his fingers around hers, but when he would have pulled her hand to his lips, she pulled away with such fervor that she almost smacked herself in the face.

"It's…" she began, obviously searching for the right words to say. "It's because you won't _let_ it be fucking. You say that it's just sex. But it's not. It's never 'just sex' with you. You won't ever let it be 'just sex.'"

"What the hell are you talking about?" he asked, thoroughly confused.

"'_I'm a social person,'_" she repeated what he'd said before. "_'I'm one who can't live without companionship.'_ You can't make it 'just sex.' That's not how you work. Do you know how many times you look at me when we're fuc—I mean, having _sex_?"

"I look at whom I touch," he ground out.

"No," she snarled. "I mean you look me in the eyes. You stare at me and I can see everything you feel in your eyes. And you can see everything I feel in mine. Do you know what it does to me, to know that what you're feeling is because of me? That what you're feeling is because you're inside me? Are you even aware of how many times you've stroked my cheek just before you make me come and call me beautiful?"

She stood up and began to pace in front of him. He sat, astonished at what he was hearing. Her arms folded in front of her, a weak shield against him. Her eyes stayed on the floor. She continued shakily, never once looking up at him.

"You make me _feel_ beautiful and wanted and desired. But I'm not enough to want to be with. You make me feel all those things and then I have to watch you try and score with some woman you just met at a bar. I can deal with sex. I can deal with fucking. But what you do to me…what we do to each other…it's too much like making love."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked angrily. "Do you want me to just give you a call and expect you to open up for me? Do you want me to push into you without a thought about your pleasure? Do you want me to _not_ care about you?"

"Oh, dammit!" she yelled out. "Of course I want you to care about me! That's the fucking problem! You don't care enough. You don't care the way I want you to or the way that you show me when we have sex."

"You said it'd be a disaster if we got back together."

"And I stand by that," she said. "Three years ago, fine. We might've stood a chance. But not now, we're too different."

"You don't want me to care too much about you and you don't want to be in a real relationship with me," he stated. "So what do you want?"

"I want to know where I stand in your life," she replied. "I want to know if _you_ want something more from me. Because if you do want more, then I'll try my hardest to make it work this time. And if you don't…well then we can't be like this anymore."

His already still form froze. His eyes hardened and his mouth curved down in a scowl. "You've never used sex to bargain for what you wanted before."

"And I'm not using it now," she proclaimed. "If you don't want more, then say it. But I can't keep doing this. I can't be your lover and feel this imitation of love."

"I care for you—"

"I know you do!" she shouted. "That's the problem! Why aren't you listening? You care about me, but you have sex with me and touch me like you _love_ me, like you're _in_ love with me."

"We were together for so long. And I love you as a friend," he rationalized. The clutch in his stomach was back, having never really left, and this time an extra clutch seized his heart. He was going to lose her, he realized. Nothing could have scared him more. "Of course I'm going to be tender when we're together."

"Tender…" she whispered. "All of those looks and caresses, those words you say to me, and you call that being tender?" Tears filled her eyes for a moment, but then cleared and her posture straightened. "You're avoiding the question. Do you want a relationship with me? Do you care about me that much? Are you willing to be _tender_ with me in public as well as when I'm under you?"

He took a deep breath. The clutch around his heart didn't let up, but the one in his stomach eased. Again he was faced with the choice to soften his words or give her the pure unvarnished truth. And again, he decided that the truth would be better.

"I do love you," he started. "And I respect the person you've become. But do I want a relationship with you, one that will end with us getting married and having kids and the whole deal? No. I don't want that. I want _you_, but I don't want that. And don't try to say that it won't end like that because we both know that it will."

"How are you so sure?" she asked defiantly.

"We wouldn't be able to help ourselves," he smirked. "For all our differences, we're compatible enough and stubborn enough and _addicted _to each other enough to stay together this time. We'd hit a rut maybe and stray from each other, cheat over and over, fight time after time, but we'd still stay together. We'd have pretty much the same relationship we do now. So why change what we're doing? What would be different?"

She looked at him in desperation. He knew the exact moment his words made sense to her because a small spark faded from her eyes. Her cheeks faded just the slightest shade from its normal glow. And her hands clenched at her sides once before she could force them to relax.

"At least I'd know where I stand with you," she finally responded. "Do you think I like being like this? Do you think that I enjoy feeling jealous and anxious and wondering when you'll finally abandon me? When I was your girlfriend, I had that to hold on to. When I was your friend, I knew the role to play. Now? What am I? You don't talk to me often enough in public to be a friend. Am I an acquaintance? But then you know me well enough to strip me naked and make me shake with passion. So am I a lover? A mistress? You don't pay me so I guess not that. You don't even give me gifts or tokens."

"You'd be satisfied with that?" he wondered out loud. "That's all you want, a title? A meaningless, stupid thing when everyone would know, would pity you, whenever I'd cheat. And although I won't go intentionally looking for opportunities, I can almost guarantee that I'd be unfaithful. You'd live like that?"

"If it's almost guaranteed that you'd be unfaithful to me, then the opposite holds true for you," she shot back. "I'm no more capable of complete monogamy than you are. Who cheated on whom first last time?"

"Braggart," he chuckled dryly. The clutch in his stomach was gone, the one around his heart not so much. He had to concede her point. Neither of them was overly loyal when it came to relationships. Except when it came to each other, that is. When it came down to it, they always ended up together.

"We know each other too well," she continued. "We know and are realistic about each other's weaknesses. Neither of us is what the other wants in a mate. But have you ever considered that we're exactly what each of us _needs_?"

"You're not making any sense," he said.

"You just said that you'd cheat on any relationship you had!" she retorted. "What other woman would put up with that from you? I'm pretty much the only one I can think of who wouldn't care as long as I knew you were mine."

"With the right woman I wouldn't want to cheat," he stated coldly. "With the right woman I wouldn't need to."

"So when you find her, what then?" she asked. "You'd slip into a relationship and live your life all peachy keen? You'd settle for one woman?"

The mockery and disbelief in her voice sliced through him. "You don't think I can?"

"We were In Love," she replied. "Capital letters, sweetheart. We were passionate and mad and stupidly head over heels for each other. And we still couldn't remain faithful to each other."

"You cheated first."

"I fucked someone else first," she corrected. "There's more than one way to cheat than the physical."

"I—" his throat closed up on his denial. It was true. There were more ways to be unfaithful than to sleep with someone else. And he did it every time he ignored her for some other woman when they went out. He closed his mouth and looked at her. She stood with her hands clasping her elbows, the position emphasizing the curve of her breasts. Her hair mussed from his fingers, her lower lip caught once again in her teeth. She stood there flushed from anger and looking like she just got out of bed.

And that clutch, that heavy, seizing clutch in his stomach and around his heart gave a final and painful squeeze.

"Oh, God-fucking-DAMN-it!" he yelled as he stood up. He vaulted over the coffee table and grabbed her by the shoulders. She pulled back and stepped away, but he forced their chests to crash into each other. Snaking a hand up to her skull, he grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged his mouth to hers. His other hand went to her waist and he fit his hips into the cradle of hers.

"You're stupid and this is a stupid conversation," he muttered against her throat as he licked his way to her collarbone. His eyes widened when she grabbed a fistful of his own hair and yanked hard. Their gazes met, clashed, and gave away secrets that neither wanted told.

"Who am I to you?" she asked again. She rolled her hips against him. "What am I to you?"

"Mine," he growled out, pulling harder on her hair, smirking when she cried out in pained pleasure. "You're mine."

* * *

"You guys are late."

"Sorry," she said, unapologetically. "We got held up."

"Sure," came the unconvinced reply. "Drink?"

"Got it covered. I sent my own personal waiter to buy the first round," she answered, jerking her thumb toward the bar where a familiar figure stood to order their usual drinks.

"You might want to get your own. Looks like your personal waiter's a bit busy."

She turned again and saw that indeed, her companion was busily chatting with a buxom redhead who looked barely old enough to be in the bar. She shrugged and reached for one of the drinks already on the table.

"Hey!"

"You said to get my own," she laughed hollowly.

"I meant, go get your ass to the bar and order your own drink. Not steal mine!" her tablemate complained. "Doesn't it bother you?"

The expected question came on a whispered breath. Knowing eyes expressed pity as they looked over her shoulder to see the man run his hand down the redhead's bare arm.

She glanced back at the sight of her lover flirting and laughed again, the sound grating to her own ears. "No," she answered truthfully. "At the moment, it doesn't bother me."

"Here you go," a new voice said, plunking down two frosty glasses of beer. "First round. You get the next two and I'll get us a pitcher for last. Deal?"

Her eyebrow rose as she looked past him to the redhead still standing by the bar. She had a dazed, but slightly disappointed look on her face. When she looked back at her lover, she blinked twice when she realized that he'd taken the stool right next to her and was bumping his shoulder against hers in the crowded bar. A laugh bubbled out of her and she smiled.

"Deal," she agreed as he grinned back.

Their tablemate looked from one to the other and grimaced. "Hey, can you not laugh like that again? It's kind of creepy and different than how you usually laugh."

"Really?" she asked, smiling widely. "I hadn't noticed."

* * *

**A/N:**

So…hello. It's been a while since I've put anything up on here and a longer one since I've felt happy enough to continue with my other fics. So I present to you Readers the twisted mess that is this story.

I've been up and down with my moods lately and my writing suffers for it. I may return to edit this, since it reads a bit hectic and seems to have no plot or message whatsoever. But again, I may not.

No real pairing is intended in this story. I kind of just wrote it so that you can put any couple you want into the roles. And yes, you're supposed to dislike BOTH of the characters a little for their behavior. Because face it, there are too many stories where one or both main characters are insanely powerful or have a strong moral standard and real people aren't like that.

The reality is that sometimes you have to accept what is without trying to change it. It's the only way to stay sane.

That said...if you wanna blast me in the Review section, I wouldn't take offense.

Ja ne!

~Zannen


	2. Still Addicted

"You deserve better, you know."

An elegant eyebrow rose over disinterested eyes. "Oh?" a soft voice murmured. "Do I, now?"

"You know you do," the first speaker answered, laying a hand over his companion's shoulder. "You're a good person and you deserve better than what you have—what you're settling for."

"He's a good person, too," she argued, shrugging her friend's hand away. She glanced toward the person in question and saw what everyone else did: a good-looking young man smiling and flirting with an equally good-looking young woman.

"Normally I'd agree with you. But what he's doing to you isn't fair. It's—"

"Nothing of consequence," she interrupted brutally. "I never ask more from him than what he's willing to give."

"Then maybe you should ask for more," came the equally brutal reply. "I'm tired of watching you wait for him. Aren't you tired of waiting, too?"

Cold eyes met concerned ones.

"Am I waiting?" she wondered.

His eyes changed from concerned to confused. "I thought you were…we never see you with anyone else."

She shrugged again, this time bringing her drink to her lips for a long sip. "I'm not interested in anyone else right now. If he is, then that's fine."

"Excuse me, but that's bullshit and you know it," he said, taking a drink from his own glass. "You don't let yourself be interested in anyone but him."

"He makes me happy…" she started.

"When he doesn't make you miserable," he finished. "You deserve better, that's all I'm saying."

"Maybe I do," she said, noticing her lover writing down the woman's information on a cocktail napkin. "But I don't _want_ any better. Just him."

"You're sick in the head, you know that?" he scoffed.

A sad smile came to her lips and the look in her eyes became brittle and jaded.

"I know."


	3. Too Far

Betrayal is a funny thing.

It is simple and complicated, justified and illicit. You can rationalize it, argue against it, and make it look any way you want it to look with just the right assortment of words put into the correct order in a sentence. It can cause the heart to pound or freeze, the world to spin or stop on its axis.

It can, and does, change lives.

All these thoughts and more ran through her mind as she stared down at the coffee table before her. Slowly, though her heart fluttered like a butterfly in her chest, she catalogued each emotion as it washed over her: hurt, anger, resentment, envy, jealousy, resignation, and rage.

At the moment, she felt so much rage.

Her fingers felt numb and her face felt tight. She wanted to cry and shout. She wanted to throw things. She wanted to punch someone. She wanted to grab him by the shoulders and never let him go. But she knew that she would do none of those things because there were two emotions that overshadowed the rest.

**Shame**.

Because he had reduced her to this.

**Pride**.

Because she knew she was so much more.

She drew those two emotions closer to her like a blanket. _No, _her mind argued, _like a shield, like armor, like—_

_A shell, _her heart corrected, _a wall for you to hide behind because he's finally gone too far._

She'd let this go on for more years than she could remember. Now, she couldn't even make a clean break from the source of her pain and addiction. There were too many entanglements, too many ties that bound them together. There would be no cold turkey for her, no gentle weaning from the intoxicating presence that was, and is, her lover.

_EX-_lover.

He would be there, at the edges of her life. A benign tumor that she could never, would never, excise.

Her head snapped up when a coffee cup slammed down on her table.

Her eyes slid over to her couch-mate. He sat as he had a million times before: leaning forward, elbows on knees, hands dangling between his legs. It seemed strange to her how he could look so different to her now when he was still the exact the same person as when he walked through her door that night. His eyes were the same intense shade; the light pout to his lips was still sexy—still irresistible to her. His voice and mannerisms remained as they always did in her presence. And yet, he somehow changed in her eyes.

He was smaller, diminished, in some way. Less.

"It's not like I'm asking for much here," came his snarling voice.

_That's where you're wrong_, she yelled in her mind. _You're asking me to share the biggest part of me—the brightest and most innocent part of me—with a complete stranger!_

She wanted to tell him that. She wanted to rant and rave and let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she couldn't do as he asked. Not now, maybe not ever. But those two emotions came welling up within her once more.

**Shame**.

Because she settled for the scraps of attention he gave her.

**Pride**.

Because she finally acknowledged the fact that her heart could no longer survive off of those meager offerings.

"Get out," she said, keeping her voice low, her expression neutral.

This caused the man to sit straight up and bang his knees against the coffee table.

She avoided his gaze and whispered, "Get. Out."

Her bangs covered her eyes as she heard his exasperated sigh. She felt his weight leave the couch and heard his heavy footsteps walk to her door. The footsteps paused, as if he was waiting for her to call out to him, to bring him back into her arms so that he could talk her down from her mood.

But when she did nothing but stare at her coffee table, he sighed again and left.

She didn't know how long she sat there, but the faint sound of crying broke through her stupor. A sad smile touched her lips as she got up and walked across the room. The smile wavered at the sight of intense eyes and lips set in an adorable pout.

Chubby hands reached up as a soft voice cried, "Mama." As she picked up her son, she allowed herself one tear.

There were too many entanglements, too many ties that bound them together. There would be no cold turkey for her, no gentle weaning from the intoxicating presence that was, and is, her lover.

"Dadada?" the voice asked, looking around as if noticing that something was missing from his world.

Her breath skittered through her lips and she hugged the toddler closer to her. That was when she realized that she'd forgotten to ask him for his copy of her apartment key.

**Shame**.

Because she knew she was capable of welcoming him back with open arms.

**Pride**.

Because she knew she was going to call the locksmith tomorrow morning to get her locks changed.

Betrayal is a funny thing.

It can, and _does_, change lives.

* * *

**A/N:**

Wow. Almost two years with no updates. I'm really sorry about that. Life tends to hit you with a semi-truck every now and then.


End file.
